


you were the most exciting thing i've ever known

by wincolia



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Shameless, and smooch a little, and talk about dogs for like 2 seconds wow, power couple right here, starring ian gayagher and monkey milkybinch, they swim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wincolia/pseuds/wincolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's nothing dangerous about the north side besides them (and it's only for the night).</p>
            </blockquote>





	you were the most exciting thing i've ever known

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song "you told the drunks i knew karate" by zoey van goey and its honestly an a+ gallavich song uH.

It was adrenaline. Running on fumes; so pure and raw it ripped at Ian’s skin and bones just like the rusted fence underneath him. He could hear Mickey call to him as he balanced at the top, rocking almost too far over for safety. 

“Don’t be a pussy, Gallagher.”

Mickey was already on the other side—the side of lusher grass and cleaner sidewalks and air that wasn’t just a stale yet heinously strong combination gasoline and alcohol. 

Ian was poised between two worlds, two sides. 

Just for the night.

He jumped, of course. He heard Mickey yell to him, his dirty South Side accent almost slicing the clear air with his mocking tone, and jumped. Ian rolled on the grass once, twice, until the soft grass cushioned his side and he was looking up at the inky black of the sky.

Mickey clicked his tongue in praise before lightly kicking Ian in his upper thigh.

“Nice training there, soldier.”

He didn’t wait for Ian, instead walking towards a small cluster of cookie-cutter houses just beyond the fence line.

“C’mon, man,” Ian whispered, maybe more to himself than to Mickey.

As Ian caught up, he could see that the distance Mickey put between them was intentional. It was always a solid two feet, with no risk of accidental brushing of hands or thighs or shoulders. Ian briefly wondered what would happen if he closed the gap.

“Rich fucks down here got everything,” Mickey said evenly. Ian squinted towards the darkness hovering over the houses.

“Everything?”

“I mean, like, luxury shit, y’know?”

Ian nodded even though he knew Mickey wouldn’t see it.

“We have a pool,” Ian replied flatly. “Even though the homeless guys down the street use it more than us.”

Mickey chuckled. Ian thought the space between them grew smaller.

Even with the stars just beginning to emerge in the night sky, Ian felt as if he had been walking forever. Every house looked the same; standard upper middle-class wet dream with an achingly charming picket fence just right for herding in a white-toothed nuclear family.

There was an ache blooming in his chest.

Mickey strayed a bit further from Ian. He dragged his palm along the fences and mailboxes in front of the silent homes and whistled absently in between lazy sips of beer. Ian couldn’t imagine Mickey—cheap alcohol guzzling, cigarette smoking, petty crime boy—in any of the houses—dainty, stable, off-puttingly spry even at night—they passed. 

Beneath the dad sweaters and sleeveless flannels and dirty cheeks and bloody knuckles and baggy jeans and everything else that Ian could think of, Mickey was pretty. Beautiful as you could get in Chicago, as far as people like Mickey went. 

Of course Ian would never say that to him, even now as Mickey glided down the sidewalks to the beat of cicadas like he was the golden private school boy that lived just a block down and to the left. It was one of the times, Ian thought, that Mickey was in his prime.

“You think we can get into one of these pools?” Mickey asked, voice softened by a layer of alcohol and blending smoothly into the quiet night.

Ian laughed and dug his hands into this pockets. “What, you wanna go swimming?”

Mickey shrugged noncommittally. At that point, he probably would have suggested anything he could come up with to entertain them. And Ian would agree in a heartbeat. It was just how it was.

“Eh...” Ian trailed off to gauge the surroundings. They had stopped in front of a house too similar to all the other ones they walked by. There was a stone statue guarding a small koi pond that faced the direction of the backyard fence. 

They could scale it. They would. It was just how that was, too.

Ian went first, running up to the fence with footfall hidden by the kept grass. He turned to Mickey, who was slow to react.

“C’mon,” Ian whisper-yelled. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. There was a moment. One, two seconds. Then Mickey jogged up to him.

“You need a boost?” he asked as Ian gripped the top of the fence. 

He tested out the sturdiness before shaking his head. “You wanna go first?”

Because you’re shorter, he almost said.

“You want me to be the one who gets caught and has the cops sicced on ‘im when the Mr. Hollywood who owns this place wakes up?”

“We won’t get caught.” Getting caught seemed both a fantasy and a cruel reality. The place seemed so untouchable, but Ian knew that they themselves were far from it.

“Trust me,” he added as an afterthought. Mickey snorted but stepped onto Ian’s cupped hands and hoisted himself up and over the fence.

He disappeared and there was another beat of silence before Mickey spoke from the other side of the fence. “Well, they do have a pool. Nice spotting, soldier.”

“Thanks.” Ian grunted and pulled himself up, following Mickey.

He hit the pavement of a stone path jerkily. Mickey hauled him to his feet.

The space definitely grew smaller. Now Mickey stood with his hand draped over Ian’s shoulder carelessly while they examined the rippling pool. It was inground, Ian noticed as he tried to quell the heat swirling in his stomach. A diving board jutted out over the water as well. It was only then that Ian became aware of the stickiness of his skin. The humid summer night bore over him for awhile, but he never paid it much mind.

And now it was combined with the feeling of Mickey’s own bare arm against his, which created more unnecessary heat. Ian didn’t really mind it, though.

“Hell yeah,” Mickey muttered. His arm fell away as he walked closer to the pool. 

“Skinny dipping?” Ian asked as he came up next to him.

Mickey ran his tongue over his chapped lips before tugging up his shirt. 

“What, really?”

“Nah,” Mickey replied, “just the shirt.”

It wasn’t just the shirt. Mickey stripped until he was only left in boxers and Ian was left in frustration. He had seen Mickey’s body before, sure, but it never stopped impacting him like it always did. No matter when he saw it (which was almost always during sex), Ian could feel himself react in almost every way you could react. It was a feeling he never grew tired of, even now seeing Mickey cautiously dip his feet in the water of a stranger’s pool.

Ian thought he may as well enjoy whatever fucked up, adrenaline rush of a ride it was to be besides Mickey at that exact moment in that exact place. 

Soon, they were both in the water. Mickey had kept to the wall at first, treading carefully in the deep end silently. Ian floated, looking up at the stars while the heaviness of the water flooded his ears. They didn’t speak for a while.

“Y’know, they had a sign out front,” Ian started, his own voice faraway to his ears. “One of those Beware of Dog signs.”

“Bet they have a tiny fucking yorkie.” Mickey has drifted closer to Ian.

“Bet they have a huge fucking German shepherd.”

“It’s probably ready to tear up our asses. Might even be one of those police ones, trained ones.”

“’Our asses?’ You know I’m faster, right? I’d be in Canaryville before they even called the cops.”

“Fuck you.” Mickey splashed at Ian, who laughed in return and splashed back.

It went on innocently enough. Ian didn’t know who pulled the other in, but they were close. So close he could feel Mickey’s hot breath on his lips and his forehead against his own. The cool water didn’t subdue the hot fire licking it’s way up Ian’s arms and legs and stomach and chest and now he was burning all over and Mickey was right there, right in front of him and he didn’t understand how the space between them vanished but it did and now they were so close.

The cement scraped at Ian’s back as he was dragged into a searing kiss of biting, wet lips and a tight hold and he could hear Mickey making noises in the back of his throat like this was the epitome of self indulgence because it really was. All Ian could do was return it all. The touching and moaning and gasping and everything that fell between as his entire body absolutely went up in flames. 

Rough fingertips bruised the skin above his ribs and he sighed with a tightened grip in Mickey’s hair. The hands moved up to his chest and collarbone and moved in sync with the lips that held his own so firmly.

The floodlights turned on. The two pulled apart to see the backyard now illuminated. A light flickered on in the house. Somebody yelled.

It took less time to get back to the fence since they ran. Ian passed the stupid lookalike houses and they blurred together and looked identical and he laughed even as his chest burned and Mickey told him to keep up because damn it, Gallagher, we have to fucking go even though he was laughing too.

The sun came up as Ian straddled the broken fence. He had helped Mickey up with no questions and he knew that soon enough he’d be yelling at Ian to hurry the fuck up.

Ian squinted into the orange sunlight until his eyes burnt as much as the rest of his body. Then he jumped again. He landed and kissed Mickey against the fence until the sky turned from an angry orange to bright, bright blue and then they walked back to their shitty neighborhood with the dead grass and angry occupants and stray dogs and cigarettes and gasoline.

They walked back to their shitty neighborhood with damp clothes and chlorine-filled hair and swollen lips and their arms pressed together the entire time.


End file.
